


Violet Horizon

by steelneena



Series: CR 2 Oneshots and Short Series [14]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Becoming family, Comfort, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Spoilers for ep 69 in chapter 2, becoming friends, pre campaign
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-05-28 05:19:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19387309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena
Summary: Two nights, years apart.Through each, Molly comes to an understanding.





	1. Violet Horizons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meridas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meridas/gifts).



> Written to Violet Horizon by Silent Island for the Album Stormvalley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuoLRLhh_XA
> 
> For Ali. It'll be okay again someday, and if I'm wrong, you've permission to shoot.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly is still figuring himself out when Yasha joins the carnival. The connection isn't instant, so much as learned.

She’s different than he expected. Not that Molly has many expectations. His whole existence is unexpected, so how can he expect things of other people? He knows that it’s perhaps a bit silly, but it is the truth, so he tries not to expect anything, even though it doesn’t always work.

Yasha – the name she’d provided them with – is quiet and retiring, almost. She never has much to say for herself, shrugging and going along with whatever it is that’s been decided. What job she shall have, what additions should be made to her clothing. Where she should sleep in their tent camp, which cart she ought ride on. Everything, Yasha takes in stride, and Molly, who’s managed to get the hang of his vocabulary, despite what he may sometimes allow others to think, is happy to have someone else who is new. There’s a piece of him that absolutely relishes loosing that newness; he’s still treated as the baby, even below Toya, who has always enjoyed being his big sibling, sometimes. (Sometimes, he’s the big sibling, when she needs him to be).

And now there is Yasha, the silent, stalking shadow of their company, large and physically imposing, but gentle and tender. He can see it in the way she lets her fingers trace the air just above a flower blossom, in the way she sometimes looks out across the horizon longingly, with sadness etched into her features.

The moon is bright the first night he hears the roar, like a great bear, coming from where she’s pitched tent. Molly’s sleep schedule is…erratic at best. It depends a lot on the phase the moon is in, and this night, the moon full, he has been walking along the perimeter of their camp, listlessly strolling through pools of silvery blue light, thinking and wondering.

He does a lot more of that than he ~~hopes~~ thinks people recognize, and he’s like to keep it that way, really. Being happy is his job, and he’s glad for it, for joyousness is the greatest gift the world has offered him in his short time. But the sound of the growl is anything but happy. It sears through him, aching in some unknown place he hadn’t yet known existed.

Molly is always discovering things about himself, every day. This night is the first he recognizes his own pain within another.

Silent as the shadows, Molly creeps his way to her tend, cautious, heart leaping, but with only earnestness in his mind and heart. Peering through the crack in the canvas, Molly can see her thrashing in her sleep, the positively gigantic sword she keeps with her propped in a corner, not terribly far away, but he’s fast and nimble and, swallowing, he takes the risk, sneaking lithely in.

What surprises him most is that, despite the agonizing nature of her sounds, she’s _crying_ , ever so softly. Instantly, his heart leaps again, but this time, it’s different. She’s been with them a whole month, and no one knew.

Ever so carefully, he rests his hand on her ankle. “Yasha,” he whispers. “Yasha, wake up.”

It had always been Gustav who held him after his night terrors, cradling him as he wept.

Yasha has no one.

No one, but Molly.

“Yasha, dear, come on, now. Wake up!” He jostles her leg, ever so slightly and she shoots up from her slumber, wide eyes, the tears ceasing instantaneously. Her whole body is coiled tight, wound like a…like a…well, maybe not _all_ of his vocabulary is back, but _most_ of it.

“Oh,” Yasha manages, eventually, her chest heaving, though her breath calms. “It’s you.”

“Yeah,” Molly says, not quite knowing how else to start. “I heard you. I didn’t want you to be alone.”

It must be the right thing, because the darkness that clouds her features wavers and passes, and the haze goes out of her eyes as her expression softens. “That is…kind. Thank you.”

“Do you want some company?” He asked, still crouching at her feet. “I don’t like being alone either.”

A long silence fills the air between them before she finally nods, shifting aside on her bedroll so Molly can lay down beside her.

He folds his hands over his stomach and looks up at the moon filtering through the canvas roof over his head, and waits.

“Do you ever miss it?” She asks, so quite he almost misses it.

“Miss what?”

“Before.”

It stings, but only for a moment, and not because he doesn’t have a before, but because she _does_ and somehow, that seems, between the two of them, to be the worse situation.

“No, but I can’t imagine it’s enjoyable to miss before, if you do. Do you?”

A soft hushing sound accompanies the silent nod of her head. “Yes…and also no. But most, yes. I do.”

“Are you afraid of before?” This, Molly asks selfishly…mostly. Maybe, he reasons, if she’s afraid of before, he won’t feel so bad about his own before. If someone so big and strong can be scared and lonely…

“Yes. Very much. I am…I am a coward.”

Desperately, Molly longs for those times when Gustav would hold him, for arms around him, tight and reassuring. But somehow, he thinks Yasha needs it more. He scoots himself over, inch for inch. She doesn’t stop him as he rests his head on her shoulder, reaches for her hand.

“I’m afraid too. I don’t even know what I have to be afraid of, but knowing that you’re scared too makes me feel better. Maybe, if we’re scared together, we can also be strong together, or you know, for one another. I figure, I’m only afraid of _my_ before, so maybe, I can help you with yours.”

“And I do the same for you?” Yasha asks, turning to face him.

“Right. Help one another out.”

“That would be…that would be very nice. I think. Yes.”

“Okay, good.” Molly shiftsanother inch closer. “I don’t like being alone at all. Can I stay here tonight?”

“Yes,” comes the automatic reply. “I don’t like being alone much either, but…I, well, it doesn’t matter. I am happy to keep you company, Mollymauk.”

“It’s Molly,” he says, impulsively. “Molly to my friends. I’d like it if you were my friend, Yasha.”

For a moment, she stiffens, and he thinks he’s said all the wrong thing, but then her body relaxes, the coil loosening and she takes his hand in her own.

“I am glad to be your friend, Molly. Thank you.”

That night, they don’t speak much. The next time, when he abandons his tent for hers, he tells her his before. A week goes by before she, haltingly, softly, tells him hers. After that night, when Molly moves into her tent permanently, no one asks any questions.


	2. Śpieŭ Daždžu (The Rain Song)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years later, Molly is without Yasha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a follow up? Completely by accident, I assure you. 
> 
> Unbeta'd. 
> 
> For Ali.

It’s the crack of thunder that wakes him, rolling across the land, the stones beneath them vibrating at the storm terrorizes the earth. Lightning flashes impossibly bright through the sky, illuminating the desolate lands around them, grey craggy hillocks that jut out from the empty plain. And then, the heavens open up and, before a one of them can run for some manner of cover, a torrent of rain comes crashing down upon them.

Molly throws his arms about his head, catching the delicate silver chain dangling from his horn with the edge of his sleeve. It pulls on his ear, but falls away harmlessly. He stays like that a moment, bracing himself against the storm, before remembering that Caleb has the hut now. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember how much has changed.

And then, to add poison in the already open wound, he reaches for Yasha, only to remember she’s not there.

Shuddering back the disappointment – the simmering anger cooled weeks ago – he pulls his knees up to his chest and settles his chin in the space between them, imagining her embrace, longing for simpler times.

Even the moon is hidden by the wicked storm clouds that throttle the open sky, illuminated from below by the sharp, jagged lightning strikes. For a while, he thinks how much she’d have loved this weather, how she’d have stepped beyond the protective confines of the spell to drench herself in the icy rain, hair whipping wildly in the wind, stinging across her face. If he closes his eyes, maybe, he can pretend.

It doesn’t work.

The sound of the rain is different on the hut than on a tent, and the lightning’s erratic patterns still show through his eyelids. The smell is different, too. Nothing makes it through the bubble. Not the fresh sizzling scent of ozone, or of earthy decay and worms, enticed from the lowest regions of soil. Not the frigid air, not the harsh wind.

He should be thankful, but he’s really not.

It all reminds him of what _isn’t._

What may never be again.

All of it sits heavy on his shoulders. Molly is well beyond his tears and his fury; its resignation that’s set in now, and he hates it almost more than the fact that Yasha isn’t here. Resignation means defeat, means letting her go, means accepting who and what she’s become, and he’s not ready for that. He’s not sure he’ll _ever_ be ready for that. He wonders if it would have been easier if he’d been there when it happened, to see her refuse to go with Fjord. To see her strike at them, her friends, to see her look at them blankly, as strangers.

To see her look at _him_ as a stranger.

He can envision it, which is the terrifying part. He can recall when she was new to the circus, when his face was just another face. When he was just another person she didn’t know. And if he’d have been there, when it happened, he could have seen, could have know for sure.

But he wasn’t, so he can’t.

He can’t be sure, because he wasn’t there, and they can’t seem to _find_ her, and he _needs_ to know. Needs to know if she’s still in there, frightened, furious to be free, or if she’s deaden inside completely, lost to whoever she’d been before.

She’d told him what she remembered of her before, and somehow, strangely, considering his own life, he’d never realized that her before might be just as terrifying as his own, if not worse. He’s even a little ashamed of it.

Sighing heavily, Molly unwraps his arms from around his legs, but twines his tail there instead, since he doesn’t have Yasha’s arm, or Yasha’s waist to occupy it.

Focusing on the storm, as if he can live it for Yasha, Molly tunes out everything else, pushing the awful thoughts away and imagines that he’s sitting beside her, that they’re quiet together, like they used to be, sometimes. Even when she arrived, he was prone to bouts of silence and they shared those times more often than not, safe in one another’s company.

A slight rustle pulls him from the depth of his reverie and he lifts his head to see Frumpkin, padding towards him. The cat’s nose nuzzles into his calf and with halfhearted effort, Molly reaches down to rub his head. “Hello, Frumpkin. Do you miss Yasha, too? I know she likes you a lot,” he whispered low to the little fey-cat. “You should go back to your master though.” Molly shifts away. “I’m sure he’ll be wanting you back.”

One unnatural blue eyed blink later and surprisingly, the cat listens to him, trotting back to Caleb without so much as a single mew, leaving Molly to his lonesome vigil once more. It isn’t long though before a much more significant rustle catching his attention, the sound of someone crawling carefully over other sleeping bodies.

It’s Caleb, of course, Frumpkin at his feet, winding between his legs.

“Storm wake you?” Molly asks, feeling a tinge annoyed, turning back to his vivid view of the landscape.

“Nein. That would have been Frumpkin.”

“Ah.”

Caleb settles down beside him, lifting Frumpkin, who goes happily limp, into his lap.

There’s silence at first, between them. Only the low rumble of Frumpkin’s purr is added to the ambient sound of the storm, but it feels heavy, as though there’s something waiting in that empty space. Something Important and Real that Molly’s not sure he’s ready to face. He’s done enough of that already this night.

A few more minutes go by before Caleb breaks the fragile silence. “We are used to the storms now, and the sleeping outside. The others and I…we sleep like logs now, when there are no dreams. We have to. We…we have been too many places where we needed the sleep too badly not to do so.”

Once upon a time, Molly thinks bitterly, that ‘we’ used to include him.

It’s obvious that Caleb’s waiting for some sort of response. All Molly provides him is a noncommittal shrug.

“We did not see her for… a month…after.”

Molly’s not shocked that Caleb can identify what’s on his mind. It’s not hard to figure that Yasha’s all he can muster the energy to think about. It’s honestly the only thing he _has_ thought about since he returned to the group and he’s not exactly kept quiet about his ire.

“She was…we were all…but she…it destroyed her.”

Anger, from it’s sleeping place coiled in his chest, awakes, bubbling like hot oil, roaring like a dragon. “You think I don’t know that?! You think I haven’t already imagined it a million times over?”

“I am not suggesting anything of the sort.” Caleb’s tone is soft, placating and Molly _despises it_. It chafes, like a rope’s been tied around his very heart. “I just thought you may like to know.”

Molly’s expression contorts into a snarl. Brambles tangle in his throat and he wants to lash out, to rip and tear and scream. Everything he thought was pushed down and away comes back up in that moment, but the others are sleeping and he doesn’t want to make a scene.

This is private, this mourning cry, this wail rising within him. With difficulty, he swallows it down and away once more, shutters his emotions back behind a wall that’s only barely holding in place. He can’t stand to look at Caleb, at anyone, and that too, stings, because once, he would have given _anything_ for this, to be sitting here with Caleb, one on one. He feels raw inside, like he’s had his insides scraped out.

If he looks, if he sees anything there, even the barest hit of emotion, not to mention pity, what little control he has left will be shattered. What he doesn’t expect is for Caleb to rest a hand on his shoulder. What he doesn’t expect is for Caleb not to say another word. Just a hand on his shoulder, patient and unconditional.

And that, that one, small thing, is what breaks him.

Molly pitches over, sobbing, into Caleb, who tentatively puts first one arm, and then another around him. It’s not a Yasha hug, but then, _nothing_ can match a Yasha hug. This is something altogether different. It’s a Caleb hug, something he’s long thought limited to Frumpkin and Nott, but, after a period of adjustment, the arms holding him tighten and Molly is held secure enough that he feels free enough to let everything go.

He cries until there’s nothing left to cry. (That’s what he thought the first time, though, so who knows.) and only then does he find it in him to appreciate the fact that it’s _Caleb_ , holding him, rocking him, rubbing his back.

But eventually, like everything, it has to end, and Molly pulls back, wiping his face with his hands. “Sorry.”

“There is no need to apologize. We all have needs. We all require outlets. I do not blame you for needing this.”

Scratching his cheek, Molly tries to come up with something to say that’s an acceptable reply when all he feels is helpless and exhausted. Nothing comes.

Before long, Caleb’s standing, and Molly feels the empty space beside him acutely. It takes him almost until Caleb is out of reach to stretch out his arm and catch him by the hand. Caleb looks back, expression like glass.

“Thank you,” Molly says finally.

Not _don’t go_. Not _stay. Please, please stay_.

Just ‘Thank you’.

Maybe it’s his imagination, but Caleb’s lips twitch ever so slightly.

“It is nothing,” he replies and then looks down at Frumpkin. “Well, go on,” he orders and then steps away, leaving Molly’s hand to fall back to his lap, where the fey-cat is currently making himself comfortable on his master’s orders.

Stroking the little cat’s head, Molly closes his eyes again, focusing on the storm, and tries to remember how it felt in Caleb’s arms, instead of how awful it is not to be in Yasha’s.

He doesn’t find sleep again until dawn.


End file.
